Norma Vasquez

“I didn’t know that the attack on our story was going to be as effective as a brilliantly run national political campaign, because that is what it was: a political campaign. I didn’t know that we were being bombarded by an army of Bush backers with different divisions, different weapons, and different techniques, but always the same agenda: kill the messenger.”
― Mary Mapes, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power

“Reality didn’t matter. Right and wrong didn’t matter. Winning was the only thing that mattered to any of the people masterminding the slash-and-burn campaigns”
― Mary Mapes, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power

“The only moral, meaningful course for a civilization facing its own end: To learn how to ask forgiveness and to atone in some tiny measure for the devastating harm we had done to our human family and to our fellow creatures and to the beautiful earth. To love and forgive one another as best we could. And to learn how to say goodbye.”
― Sigrid Nunez, What Are You Going Through

“This memo said that Bush was being suspended not just for “failure to meet annual physical examination [flight] as ordered.” It said that Bush also was being suspended for “failure to perform to USAF/ TexANG standards.” That was new. And it was big. The document said that the officer “has made no attempt to meet his training certification or flight physical” and that the officer “expresses desire to transfer out of state including assignment to non-flying billets.” The official story had always been that Lieutenant Bush wanted to go to Alabama to work in a local political race, but this document’s statement about Bush making “no attempt” to meet his certification or to get his physical sounded bad and presented a new context for long-ago events. The document also referred to Bush’s pilot position as “critical.” If that was true, then the long-held claims by the Bush camp that he had been no longer needed as a pilot were untrue.”
― Mary Mapes, Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power